


Operatic Exigencies

by maimed_dead_you



Category: A Series of Unfortunate Events (TV), A Series of Unfortunate Events - Lemony Snicket
Genre: Alternate Timelines, Character Study, F/M, Hate and love and passion oh my, Violet's aged up and out for blood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-12
Updated: 2019-01-12
Packaged: 2019-10-08 15:25:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,240
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17388905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/maimed_dead_you/pseuds/maimed_dead_you
Summary: 1. Operatics (n.): exaggerated or melodramatic behavior, often thought to be characteristic of operatic acting.Or, a word which here means, "Violet Baudelaire thinks she's an amazing actress, and Count Olaf doesn't have a single clue."2.	Exigency (n.): the need, demand, or requirement intrinsic to a circumstance, condition, etc.Or, a word which here means, "the demanding passion with which Violet Baudelaire both needed and required Count Olaf to validate the intrinsic morality her circumstances forced her to cling to. Not conditional. Sadly."Alternate timeline oneshot.





	Operatic Exigencies

     "Your fingernails are vile." 

     "My fingernails are stunning, and you're jealous. Glad we're finally meeting for the first time to clear up this misconception." 

     Violet turned her chin upwards to glance at the man she was laid on. Scowling, she breathed something heavy, frustrated into the already must-filled air. 

     She hated him.

     "You know, I hate you." 

     "Do you now?" Olaf raised one eyebrow, stretching it across his forehead.

     "Mm."

     "Well if you did hate me, Violet Baudelaire, I doubt my hand would be wrapped around your waist." She tried shifting away, uselessly. He shifted closer. "All alone on this tiny, tiny bed, I  _doubt_ the fingernails you find so horrifying, so unkempt," he drawled, feigning pity, "would be tracing little circles along that very line of your hips." 

     "Must everything be a monologue? We're not on stage."   
     "The world's a stage, Violet. I'm an ac _tor_. I perform. An annoyingly smart twenty-something year old should realize that."  
     "Nineteen."   
     "Same difference."   
     "It's not."   
     "When Violet Baudelaire of all people climbs through my window after years of thinking me dead, demanding I make love to her and returning like a stray dog every night afterwards, I will perform as she so damn pleases. Nineteen or twenty or not." 

     She hated the theatricality. Always with the dramatics. It was too  _him_ , especially when his breathy, male-model-attempted whisper mixed with his cologne. If he still insisted on calling it that.

     With a sudden wave of revulsion, Violet shifted towards as much space as she could find and turned her back from Olaf.

     "Jacquelyn wrote me today," she decided on after a moment. Olaf made a 'hmph' noise and Violet could feel his grip tighten, slightly, enough that she was sure he was unaware.

     "And what'd she want,  _dove_?"   
     "Do you want the same bruise from the last time you called me that?" Violet bit back.   
     "Depends. If I get any perks later tonight for taking things more aggressively, then yes." 

     Violet rolled her eyes. "She wanted to know if I could meet them. At, um... at the new place." She could feel Olaf grimace without needing to look. "I'm going." 

     Olaf snickered. "You're not." 

     "...I'm sorry?" 

     "Firstly,  _orphan_ ," he wheezed as he sat up a little straighter, "you don't have the guts. Second, I said you're not. That's it. End of story." 

     Violet sat up to match him. "You're not the boss of me. You can't give me orders on where I can and can't go." 

     " _You're not the boss of me_ ," he mocked. Scratched violins curled down Violet's spine, and she shuddered at the reminder of her school days. "Must we always play this game? Such a child, still. You're so petulant when you don't get your way. Just like your brainy brother and the bratty baby. By the way, is that thing even a baby anymore? Because Fernald has been pestering—"

     "My siblings," Violet snapped, "are children." She considered leaping from the bed before remembering her promises. "And they'll stay just as innocent for a long time, no thanks to you," she spat. "I stopped being a child a while ago.  _You_ are the reason for that, you know." 

     Olaf's eyes shined hungrily. Greedy. 

     She'd fallen into his trap. 

     "Mm." His eyelids slipped close and he grinned. "How I missed this." 

     Violet stared at him for a while, waiting for a soliloquy to mark his response complete. When he offered only quiet, she slumped back onto her side of the bed, letting his hand move to caress her hair instead. 

     "...How could you think I'm still afraid?" 

     Her voice sounded small against the silence, settled among the dust and old VFD paraphernalia littering Olaf's bedroom. She regretted it at once. 

     "Because you are," Olaf said. He spoke matter-of-factly, still dragging fingernails along her scalp. "You have been from the day I met you and you haven't changed a bit." 

     Violet sank further into his touch when she looked out his window. It was rainy, grimy, and cramped. "Interesting for  _you_ to say. Like you've done anything noble in your lifetime." She slipped into inventions of an alternate past, half-ignoring his hands. A sliver of cracked glass blew rawness and chills onto her skin. 

     Suddenly, Olaf stopped. A secret part of her grieved. 

     "Is that what you think?" 

     He turned to look down at her, and for a moment, Violet  _did_ feel afraid. Not at him, necessarily. Just the captivity in his eyes. 

     She didn't like when he did this. Made her feel like him. 

     He scoffed and looked away again, at nothing, continuing the languid motions through Violet's hair. "A few brave and noble deeds don't suddenly make you brave, orphan." She could feel a sharp increase of breath rise to his chest. "That's exactly why you'll never amount to anything more if you side with...  _them_. Too much ridiculous self-belief." 

     Violet stared ahead at the same nothingness.   
     "If I'm so afraid, why am I laying next to you?"   
     "Simple. Because you're not afraid of me. You're afraid of who you are without me." 

     His hand moved to spider along her upper back now, and she buckled under the tremble on her skin. 

     "You're afraid that my  _vileness_ —" here, he swept a theatrical motion— "won't be there to make you feel more noble. And laying here makes you think you've one-upped me. Like you've made me give into the  _overwhelming charm_ of Violet Baudelaire." He snickered, then sneered. "Like every Baudelaire thinks. And like every Baudelaire has ever thought, and like every goddamn Baudelaire that makes it into this world will continue to think until someone is smart enough to burn them out of it." 

     Done. 

     Violet broke the hypnotism his touch had trapped her under. She threw his hand off forcefully, at once mourning the loss and never wanting to feel his filthy, disgusting fingertips again. 

     " _Stop_." Tears pricked at the girl's eyes.  
     "Oh." Olaf grinned something wicked. "Hit a nerve, did I, orphan?"   
     She burned in silence.   
     "Well, considering I've now one-upped a Baudelaire  _again_ —and the prettiest one, too—looks like we can both agree it's your turn to be on top tonight." 

     He laughed too dramatically at his own warped humor.  _Like an actor_ , Violet thought. She bit her lip harshly enough to draw blood. 

     "I'm going to the meeting," she ordered, suddenly. 

     Olaf's laughter hushed to a smirk. Or a scowl. She decided on the smirk. Violet sat a little taller.

     "I'm going, and I'm taking Klaus and Sunny. I'll get permission from Mr. Poe to pull them from Prufrock. You won't stop me." 

     "I've already done what I need to do, Violet," Olaf drawled as he stood from the bed. Lazily, he inspected a fingertip. "You're questioning. You know that I know your game now. It's over. I won." Violet felt a flashing urge to pull him back down, back to the space he abandoned her with, but suppressed it. 

     "You're wretched." 

     "And yet you continue to stay here, night after night, and keep up this charade with me. ' _Oh, Olaf_ ,'" he imitated, " _Olaf, Olaf, Olaf!_ Familiar?" His eyes shone. "I may be wretched, but you need me. Wretched or not." 

     Violet turned her chin upwards to glance at the man she was laid on. Scowling, she breathed something heavy, frustrated into the already must-filled air. 

     She hated him.

     And if she didn't, she would keep pretending that she did.  

_Like an actor_ , Violet thought.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading!! I hope that was an in-character enough study of these two and their Very Fascinating Dynamic (the asoue nerd which fuels my entire existence is showing, sorry).
> 
> And thank you to all my wonderful, amazing, incredible dumb bitches. You know who you are and your support means the absolute world. :) All my love and then some. <3


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